1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a character resource utilizing system which permits a printing apparatus to print a document, an image, etc. using character resources such as character typefaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of printing apparatuses are widely used to print out a document. Of those printing apparatuses, a page printer, which has an electrophotographing mechanism using a photosensitive drum, is popular due to its fast printing and clear printout. This electrophotographic printer forms an electrostatic latent image on a photosensitive drum or the like, and develops the latent image with a powdery developer to provide a visible image. After the developed image is transferred onto a sheet of paper, the sheet is separated from the photosensitive drum and the transferred image is then fixed. Such a printing apparatus basically performs dots-based printing. This printing apparatus can therefore print out any pattern as long as the pattern is expressed in dots. Because of the feature, the printing apparatus is capable of printing various types of characters. Thus, there is a demand for a system which can use various kinds of characters to print out a pattern.
FIG. 1 is an exemplary diagram of prior art.
The system shown in FIG. 1 has a plurality of terminal devices of 20 to 22, such as a personal computer, a word processor and a work station, connected via network units 3 to printing apparatuses 10 and 11 in a network 6 like a LAN (Local Area Network). The printing apparatuses 10 and 11 are used as common output apparatuses for the individual terminal devices 20-22.
In the illustrated system, the individual terminal devices 20 to 22 use the common output apparatuses 10 and 11 to print out documents. The common output apparatuses 10 and 11 have character resources (character patterns) to print out characters. The character resources include standard Mincho Kanji characters, Gothic Kanji characters, etc. which are normally used. The character resources are prepared manually as well as by software, requiring many steps. In this respect, the character resources, like software, have values according to their usages.
There is a known concept of charging and managing the number of printouts by counting and charging the amount of standard character resources used (e.g., Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. sho 63-218454). But, this concept is for managing the number of printouts, not for evaluating the values of character resources.
With regard to characters, such as Kanji characters, recently, there is a demand of printing those characters in various typefaces. These typefaces include a text typeface, a round typeface, a brush typeface and special typefaces besides the aforementioned standard typefaces. Those typefaces are selectively used in accordance with the type of a document. To use such optional character resources, it is necessary to purchase a font memory device or the like to store the character resources.
Unlike the standard character resources, however, the optional character resources are to be installed as desired by a purchaser. While the development of optional character resources is costly, they are generally treated as accessories and are not properly evaluated, so that the development cost cannot be recovered.
Those optional character resources are designed for beautiful display of characters, or are special characters. Therefore, the development of optional character resources costs more than that of standard characters. If the optional character resources are treated as accessories or are available at low prices, the development cost cannot be recovered. That is, the optional character resources are not properly evaluated so that it is inevitable to develop the optional character resources at a low cost and a variety of character resources cannot be provided.